An Unknown Name
by Dialux
Summary: Astarte Derwent is a quiet Ravenclaw girl with a future to watch out for. Over the next twenty years, she will remake Wizarding society, rule the Wizarding world, and do the one thing that has no manual- fall in love. Set in alternating last years of Second war and aftermath. Mostly canon couples. Explores Percy Weasley.


**Hi everyone! I'm back... This is another series, completely different from Carina Black. Due to some technical difficulties with the next chapter (meaning I'm having serious writer's block) that won't be updated until next week. This series, on the other hand, is set in the post-Second War scene, and I will be alternating between the past and the present on this. The main character is, yes, an OC. But Percy Weasley- whom I believe is actually one of the most interesting characters in the entirety of canon- is romantically involved with my OC. I just never thought that having him marry Audrey (a canon OC, if you will) was a wise choice on JKR's part. It gives us fandom writers too much leeway! If anyone has any questions, just shoot me a PM or a review; I'll do my best to answer it.**

**- Dialux**

* * *

_"We, none of us, thought of her. I mean, we knew she existed. But she was never actually part of anything we were. She wasn't in the DA, she wasn't in anything. But when the war ended- well, Hermione, all of us really, thought we knew what would happen. Kingsley would be Minister, Harry and I Aurors, and Hermione would go back to school. But she managed to change it all. I mean, who thought the girl who barely spoke a word in class would become the world's youngest Minister of Magic?"_

_- Ronald Weasley on Minister Astarte Derwent_

* * *

The island they'd apparated to was bleak, Percy thought. It was bleak and empty and colorless around them.

And Astarte- she looked at home, here, her feet braced apart as if on a ship deck, head tilted back and looking like she embraced the power and mystery of the gray-blue ocean surrounding them. To a Weasley, this place's beauty should have been incomprehensible. It was gray and empty and dead, and Weasleys were full of life and love. But Percy- oh, Percy was no mere Weasley. He fought with personal demons in lands far bleaker than this on.

He'd live.

As he stepped forward, he shivered. The cold ocean spray rained down on them both, chilled further by the howling wind. But when Astarte turned to look at him, and when she leaned into him in a so-very-familiar embrace, the wind and the ocean seemed to calm, as if listening to her very words.

"It isn't much," she told him quietly, lacing her fingers through his own. "But it is home."

Percy gave a slight laugh, but it sounded more like a tired gasp than any kind of laughter. "Oh, Astarte. Did you think I wouldn't understand?"

The tension he hadn't even noticed in her shoulders bled away. "Would you have?"

"Perhaps not." At her incredulous glance, he went on, "But maybe I would have."

It was so sad, he thought- not bitterly but more resigned- that it was him standing beside her here, on the ruins of her family home. That they were here, together, when they should have been with their families. They had lost them to time and tragedy and secrets. And Percy wasn't sure what his life would have been like- most likely full of regret and remorse and absolutely no closure.

Astarte shifted slightly, and he tightened his arms around her. But- but her had Astarte. And for what it was worth, Astarte had him. Merlin, Mordred, Morgana, and every other legend be damned, she had him.

* * *

The island was, at first glance, dead.

But if one looked closer, tiny sprigs of lavender and heather sprouted from gray stone. Deep-grooved trails were worn into stone with the persistent stubbornness of a colony of human settlers who would not accept that they could not survive here. Natural caves were used as storage and millennia-old hollows became homes.

Percy tipped his head back, inhaling deeply. The dull tang of sea salt wove with the airiness of lavender and the muskiness of heather, but it was the slight hind of acrid smoke that gave him pause. He'd smelt it before, smelt it in-

"Yes, Percy." Astarte smiled up at him. It might not be a smile anyone else would have believed, but Percy knew the effort it had taken to do so. He appreciated it.

He took what he could.

"Yes to what?"

"Yes, she did live here." Percy's eyes widened. "Ravenclaw tower was charmed to smell like home- her home." She turned away, striding along a pearl-grey path and scattering starlings from their nests. "I never did understand how she could leave."

Percy frowned. "You did."

"Yes." The word was flat, but her lowered eyes didn't completely hide the gleam of hurt in them. "I did."


End file.
